Finsbury Park & Stroud Green Neighbourhood Forum

Long-term readers will recall that the subject of Neighbourhood Forums crops up here occasionally.<br><br>As defined by the Localism Act, a Neighbourhood Forum is an officially-recognised local forum consisting of councillors, businessmen and local activists. It works within a defined Neighbourhood Area the boundaries of which must be carefully justified. The Neighbourhood Forum can then produce a Neighbourhood Plan which has to be passed by a local referendum. This plan can allow local communities to shape their planning law in regards to shops, streetscaping, new developments, conservation rules and so on.<br><br><a href="http://www.stroudgreen.org/discussion/3525/10-second-stroud-green-survey/p1">We once had a decent stab at defining Stroud green's borders</a><br><br>We <a href="http://www.stroudgreen.org/discussion/5791/do-you-know-where-you-live-stroud-green-crouch-end-hornsey">renewed that debate</a> when Crouch End did some research for their own (now Haringey-approved) boundary.<br><br>Following the Finsbury Park regeneration conference last year, a steering group has been formed to discuss founding a Finsbury Park Neighbourhood Forum. Predictably, I'm involved. One of our first tasks is to determine what the Neighbourhood Area should be. And one of the key questions to answer is:<br><br>Should Stroud Green have it's own neighbourhood forum, or should it share one with Finsbury Park? My own view is that when it comes to planning needs Finsbury Park is quite redevelopment/regeneration-focussed, whereas Stroud Green is more conservation-focussed, and so separate forums would be wise. I don't feel overwhelmingly strongly about this, though. What do you think?<br>

Comments

I've been tasked with drawing up a map to facilitate the discussion. Here it is:<br><br>https://www.google.com/maps/d/edit?mid=zhy9lvxNt-EE.khvWZzMEuTyw&usp=sharing<br><br><div>It's just a first stab, but it might be helpful in shaping thinking.<br><br>I've started with the 'Finsbury Park core', which is more-or-less the Finsbury Park 'town centre' as per the Tri-Borough Accord. I've tried to exclude anything that I thought could arguably fall outside FP for any reason, so it's very compact.<br><br>Surrounding this I have various zones. These are the areas where part, all or none of the streets may be included. Some of these are somewhat arbitrary at the moment.<br><br>Among these zones, I have broken down Stroud Green (as defined by the research in the thread linked above) into three areas. It will need to be determined whether all of these areas will be included in a 'Greater Finsbury Park' neighbourhood forum, or whether to seek to define a boundary between separate Finsbury Park and Stroud Green neighbourhood forums.<br><br>I did not include anything west of Hornsey Road, figuring that Hornsey Road marks the border with Holloway, though maybe there are arguments to the contrary?<br><br>Surrounding the Finsbury Park area, I have also included the official boundaries of the Islington-recognised 'Crouch Hill and Hornsey Vale Neighbourhood Forum' and the Haringey-recognised 'Crouch End Neighbourhood Forum' for reference.<br><br>Finally, I have included the boundaries of the Harringay neighbourhood (as defined by HarringayOnline users) and the Manor House neighbourhood (just my own approximation). I strongly suspect that neither area (especially not Harringay) will want to be subsumed into an FP NF.</div><div><br></div><div>Any thoughts?</div>

Does it mean that now nelson road to uplands road are in the crouch end ward?<div><br></div><div>Interesting, i guess it's an estate agents-backed move :-)</div><div><br></div><div>I love this discussion and will send my contribution as soon as i have got more time</div>

Righto folks, this is important. As discussed above, there is a nascent Finsbury Park Neighbourhood Forum in the works which would have power over local planning law. They are now in the process of defining the boundaries of the forum.
A key question is whether Stroud Green should be included, and if so how much of it. Here's your chance to have your say - do you live in Stroud Green? Do you feel that Stroud Green (or your part of it anyway) is part of 'Finsbury Park'?
Here's the 60-second online survey: https://finsburyparkplan.wordpress.com/boundary-survey/

I'm having difficulty with the stroud green finsbury park overlap area. Personally I think it has to be one or the other and I would have to say to me it feels more FP. But then I live in the green area close to Crouch End so maybe that's why I think that.

In terms of the Neighbourhood Forum boundaries it does need to be 'one or the other', i.e. Stroud Green needs to be in the Finsbury Park Forum or have its own. This survey will help to determine that.
My own view is that it's not overly important as long as Stroud Green doesn't end up being split up between different forums or none.

Hi Arkady and all, this is great work and obviously really important - thanks for keeping us in the loop.
I agree that, while I don't feel too passionately one way or another, the NF for Stroud Green is likely to have pretty different objectives than the Finsbury Park one. So there's an argument for 2 separate NFs.
I did fill in the form and, FWIW, I said that I call where I live Stroud Green but do feel like it's part of "Finsbury Park" - I walk my dog in the park and walk to the tube to travel. So I'm not sure that the form totally captured my opinions about the NFs! Perhaps a form that asked a direct 'yes/no' question about Neighbourhood Forums would be more useful?
Again, thanks for this and I'd love to know more as things progress.

My memory was just jogged about this. The interim survey results can be seen here:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/l7vvy1ly1lqqvoe/FPNP - Boundary Survey results - v2.pptx?dl=0
The first page shows how people answered when asked where they lived. The second page shows whether (if they didn't give Finsbury Park as their first answer) they consider their Neighbourhood to be part of Finsbury Park.
As you can see, on the basis of this evidence it will be difficult or impossible to separate Stroud Green and Finsbury Park, and any Stroud Green area left over from the creation of a FP Neighbourhood Forum would likely be too small to sustain its own Forum - which is contrary to the guidance to the Localism Act

"Just one week to go until we explore and discuss The Future of Culture and Leisure in Finsbury Park!
A reminder of our two fantastic speakers...
Melli Bond from the Park Theatre - "The role of the Park Theatre in the community, and my vision for the future"
Hayley Squires from former live music venue Silver Bullet - "Connecting the Community: celebrating Music, Art, and Culture in Finsbury Park"
We'd also like to take this opportunity to thank the Finsbury Park Trust for supporting the event, and our journey towards a Neighbourhood Plan.
Date and time: Monday, 16 January 2017 at 7.00-8.30pm
Venue: Studio Suite, Rowan's Leisure Centre, 10 Stroud Green Road, London N4 2DF
Kind regards,
Ricky Thakrar
https://finsburyparkplan.wordpress.com "

If you're not covered by the Neighbourhood Forum boundary, then the Neighbourhood Plan drawn up by the Forum (and enacted after a local referendum) won't apply to you.
You can get a feel for what can be included in a Neighbourhood Plan here:
https://www.gov.uk/guidance/neighbourhood-planning--2

I can hear the squeals of someone's toes being stepped on.
"Land Grab"
"Do we really want our neighbours being such a key influence over what's been Harringay for over a hundred years?"
"This is another layer of governance that will add real costs to your council tax bill"
"...they'll just fracture what exists by setting up more competing interest groups that add little value. Whose interests are they serving? What's the motivation behind the people driving this forward? "
No, not the Daily Mail. Not Farage,
Just another fit of pique from the site across the way http://www.harringayonline.com/forum/topics/emergent-finsbury-park-neighbourhood-forum-inharringay-land-grab

I don't agree with many of Hugh's criticisms, but I actually think he's right to be be concerned about the proposed boundary encroaching on Harringay. While in some ways its good that Forum boundaries are being created organically, there are problems with it too - one area potentially can 'get in first' and include territory that might be more naturally included in a different forum.

The latest iteration of the survey results, with the first proposal for the 'Finsbury Park and Stroud Green Neighbourhood Forum' boundary, can be found at the link below.
You'll see that the survey results strongly suggest excluding the Harringay area, and probably Woodberry Down/Manor House too - though there's more work to do there. Other than that I think it will mostly be tinkering at the edges now.
https://finsburyparkplan.files.wordpress.com/2017/01/fpnp-neighbourhood-area-study-v12-31.pdf